Get ready, California: Gavin Newsom is not Jerry Brown, from governing styles to Trump taunts to hairdos

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President Donald Trump greets California Gov. Jerry Brown as Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, left, watches as he arrives on Air Force One at Beale Air Force Base for a visit to areas impacted by the wildfires, Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018, at Beale Air Force Base, Calif. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – NOVEMBER 08: Governor-elect Gavin Newsom poses with Robert Harrell, right, as he hands out free meals at the St. Anthony Foundation’s dining room in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. To the left is Newsom’s wife Jennifer. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – NOVEMBER 08: Governor-elect Gavin Newsom speaks during a press conference at the St. Anthony Foundation in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – NOVEMBER 08: Governor-elect Gavin Newsom speaks during a press conference at the St. Anthony Foundation in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – NOVEMBER 08: Governor-elect Gavin Newsom speaks during a press conference at the St. Anthony Foundation in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – NOVEMBER 08: Governor-elect Gavin Newsom and his wife Jennifer, right, greet people as they walk through the Tenderloin District of San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – NOVEMBER 08: Governor-elect Gavin Newsom, left, greets Gary West as he hands out free meals at the St. Anthony Foundation’s dining room in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – NOVEMBER 08: Governor-elect Gavin Newsom speaks during a press conference at the St. Anthony Foundation in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – NOVEMBER 05: California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom campaigns on the final night of his California gubernatorial race, November 5, 2018, at the Chapel in San Francisco, California. He was joined by his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris and Gov. Jerry Brown. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – NOVEMBER 05: Gavin Newsom shakes hands with Gov. Jerry Brown after the final stop of his gubernatorial campaign, November 5, 2018, in San Francisco, California. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

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One built a multimillion-dollar wine business and once filled the gossip columns with details of his dating life, while the other took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience before spending three years in a Jesuit seminary. One won national fame by marrying same-sex couples, while the other is known for mastering the drudgery of state government and averting financial catastrophe. One sports a perfectly coiffed mane that seems to defy gravity, while the other has his wife trim the gray that’s left around his ears.

When Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom takes over from Gov. Jerry Brown, he’ll bring a new set of priorities to California’s top job — as well as a very different personality and leadership style.

Newsom, 51, who’s known the 80-year-old Brown since he was a kid, has vowed to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps on issues like fighting climate change, reforming the criminal justice system and maintaining the state budget. But he’s also argued that California needs a more activist approach to battling inequality, with new investments in health care and education.

One of Newsom’s first challenges will be to escape Brown’s long shadow — it isn’t easy following someone who’s been the dominant figure in state politics for a generation. “Gavin Newsom is going to have to define himself as governor in a way that Jerry Brown didn’t have to,” said Miriam Pawel, the author of a recent Brown biography.

As the four-term governor, who plans to retire to his family’s 2,500-acre Colusa County property, told Newsom at the penultimate rally of his campaign this month, “I’ll be watching from the ranch… but I’m only an hour from Sacramento, so Gavin, do not screw up.”

Here are some of the differences that political observers say Californians should expect when Newsom takes the reins in early January:

Gov. Jerry Brown and Governor-elect Gavin Newsom address the media at the State Capitol this month. (Paul Kitagaki/Sacramento Bee)

Support for more liberal policies

While Brown has cultivated his image as a voice of moderation in Sacramento and the adult in the state capitol, Newsom has defined himself with progressive crusades on issues from same-sex marriage to gun control.

Newsom has also backed a number of bills Brown vetoed, from gun control legislation to new regulations on charter schools to measures launching a pilot supervised drug injection site in San Francisco and requiring President Trump to release his tax returns to get on the state’s ballot.

Still, Newsom has insisted he’ll follow Brown’s lead on fiscal discipline and preserving the state’s rainy day fund, although he’s said he wants larger investments for early childhood programs, something he’s described Brown as being “stubborn” on.

His challenge will be finding the balance between penny-pinching and progressive wins. “There’s a lot of pent-up demand from progressives who want to get a lot of things accomplished,” said Steven Maviglio, a Democratic strategist who worked for former Gov. Gray Davis. But he warned that similar liberal demands were the “downfall” for Davis, who was recalled by the voters: “He had so much pressure from the left that he wasn’t able to control.”

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom greets the crowd while riding in the San Francisco Pride parade in June 2016. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

How much you’ll see and hear him

Despite his looming influence over Sacramento, Brown has kept a relatively low profile over the last eight years. He rarely holds press conferences or public events and only selectively comments on day-to-day political controversies — maximizing attention when he does speak out.

It’s a different story with Newsom, who took an energetic approach as mayor of San Francisco, seeking out the spotlight, wading into political debates far and wide, and relishing the opportunity to press the flesh.

“Brown is a minimalist when it comes to both campaigning and using the bully pulpit of the governorship,” said Garry South, a longtime political consultant who ran Newsom’s 2010 campaign for governor (which he eventually dropped to endorse Brown). “Newsom is going to be far more activist in going out in pushing, defending, explaining his policies.”

One of the best illustrations is the two politicians’ approaches to President Trump. Both men have forcefully denounced the president and his policies over the last two years. But Brown has carefully chosen a handful of specific fights, while Newsom spent much of his time on the campaign trail over the last two years attacking the president and trading barbed tweets with Trump on everything from family separations to his taxes. The two even compared each other to clowns.

Newsom will “have to avoid the shiny object of national politics,” said Bill Whalen, a former GOP strategist who worked for Gov. Pete Wilson. “He can tweet as much as he wants to about Trump, but that’s not governing.”

The first test of that came last weekend when Newsom and Brown joined the president during his visit to the sites of California’s deadly wildfires. Trump and Newsom, meeting in person for the first time, vowed to work together to help the victims — but it remains to be seen whether they’ll revert to name-calling once the smoke clears.

President Trump greets Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom as he arrives on Air Force One at Beale Air Force Base for a visit to areas impacted by the wildfires this month. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Big infrastructure projects

Newsom has waffled on Brown’s pet megaprojects, a high speed rail line connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles and massive twin tunnels carrying water from the Sacramento River delta to Southern California. He insists he will build them, but has raised the prospect of slimming both expensive systems down, focusing on the Bay Area-to-Central Valley portion of the bullet train and cutting the water project from two tunnels to one.

Escalating costs could put both ambitious projects in peril. High-speed rail in particular has already ballooned from $33 billion to $77 billion over the last decade, and is far behind its original schedule. Just this month, ew state estimates concluded that the Southern California portion of the route might cost an additional $11 billion.

“Gavin doesn’t have the same vested interest in these projects as Jerry does,” said Barbara O’Connor, a professor emeritus at California State University, Sacramento and a Brown appointee during his first term. “My bet is he eventually jettisons (high-speed rail), and uses that capital and his surplus to do his own stuff,” like building more affordable housing.

Gov. Jerry Brown, center, and his wife Anne Gust, third from right, start signing a portion of the rail at the California High Speed Rail Authority ground breaking event in January 2015 in Fresno. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

Relationship with the legislature

One of Brown’s biggest strengths in his most recent two terms has been his clout over the 120-person legislature. He came into office with the gravitas of his experience and set a strong tone early, vetoing a budget passed by Democratic lawmakers in his first year.

“Brown very smartly established himself as the alpha male in Sacramento,” Whalen said. “It’s paramount for Newsom to establish that kind of dominance in the relationship.”

Newsom, who avoided spending much time in the State Capitol as lieutenant governor, will enter the governor’s office with Democratic supermajorities in both houses — a luxury Brown enjoyed only fleetingly. But that can be a blessing or a curse. While it makes it easier for him to push through progressive policies, it removes a convenient excuse past governors have pointed to for not achieving their promises. It also shifts the power dynamic toward legislative leaders: Theoretically, Democrats in the legislature could override a Newsom veto, although that hasn’t happened to any governor since Brown’s first term in 1979.

One other difference: Legislators might be able to put away their Latin dictionaries when Brown — who peppered his bill signing statements and veto messages with quotes from scripture and philosophers — leaves office. Newsom has been quoting Aristotle in his stump speech over the past few weeks, but his favorite aphorisms are more likely to come from Jerry Garcia than Julius Caesar.

Gavin Newsom with his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom with three of his four children at his election night party in Los Angeles this month. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)His “Kennedy-esque” family

Like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Newsom will bring a sense of celebrity and style — and young children — to California’s first family. He and his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a prominent filmmaker and activist, have four kids ranging in age from two to nine. Siebel Newsom played a starring role in Newsom’s campaign, and her documentary work on issues like inequality and women’s rights dovetails strongly with Newsom’s agenda.

Brown, who during his first stint as governor dated stars like singer Linda Ronstadt, has been married during his second two terms to former Gap executive Anne Gust, who’s served as one of his closest advisers but stayed mostly behind the scenes. (Newsom’s most famous ex is Kimberly Guilfoyle, the former Fox News star now dating Donald Trump, Jr.)

The Newsoms, who live in the hills of Kentfield in Marin County, haven’t said whether they plan to move into the governor’s mansion in Sacramento, which Brown renovated during his tenure.

Then there’s the dogs — Brown’s pups Sutter, Colusa and Cali have become minor social media sensations, with Colusa’s twitter account filled with canine puns about state government. Max, the Newsom’s Labrador, doesn’t have his own page yet but did capture attention when Siebel Newsom tweeted a picture of his poop bags emblazoned with Trump’s face.

Newsom’s young family could give the first couple a “Kennedy-esque” vibe, winning him more national attention, Whalen predicted.

“In California, we went from Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was all about stagecraft and showmanship, to Jerry Brown, who’s been an absolute no-frills production,” he said. “The question for Gavin is the balance: how heavy he goes on theatrics and how heavy on governing.”